Red Life
Red Life is an American animated series created by Elliot Strange. The show is a reboot of Grojband, using more or less the same characters. Production Wanting to get back into the television industry, Elliot Strange decided to produce a remake of the Canadian series Grojband. He was never satisfied with the original version, so alongside Cal Clarion, he acquired the rights to the show and was thus able to make a version of his own. He believed that the original series was confusing, and he found Trina to be the most interesting character on the show. To let people know about this new project, Strange, Owen Emerson, Jay Kogen and Brian Robbins produced an hour-long special detailing everything that the series will feature. Following the first two episodes, Robbins was fired from the production team due to creative differences. Plot The premise is near-identical to the original Grojband, only difference is that the roles of Corey and Trina have been switched. It could be considered a spiritual successor to Grojband, as Trina is still getting routinely humiliated by her brother and his band. Aside from constantly dealing with her brother, she is also attempting to re-invent herself and fully regain the trust of her friend Mina. The show follows her daily life and how her temper gets her into trouble, leading to her attempting to fix it and learning a moral towards the end. Starting with episode 9, the second segment in each episode ends with Trina and/or one of her friends writing about the trouble they went through, summarizing what they've learned, and then making the paper they write on into a boat and send it down stream. Connections Strange has claimed that the only characters from the original series that will appear in the show with major roles are Trina, Mina, Corey. * Kin won't appear in the series because since Corey isn't the main focus (there isn't a reason to feature Corey performing) he won't be useful. * Nick made only two appearances in the series, but was immediately dropped after his second appearance due to him being too generic to work with. * Kon has been confirmed to appear in the series, but his personality will be altered to a degree in order to correlate with years of rejection from Trina. * Laney has also been confirmed to appear at some point, likely to serve as a rival to Trina and will have a major role in a future episode. Characters Main * Trina Riffin (Cristina Pucelli): The older sister of Corey. She's cynical, uppity, generally negative and suffers from severe anger issues. These attributes have been brought upon by many years of humiliation brought upon by her younger brother. Knowing that she'll never get anywhere in life with her attitude, she attempts to fix herself, to varying success. There're times when she gives into her hostile attitude, but she manages to stop before it gets worse. Deep down, she is a nice girl, but years of humiliation and a lack of self-esteem have left her bitter. * Mina Beff (Eliza Schneider): Trina's on and off best friend. Mina is timid, shy, brainy and socially awkward, and the only reason she ever tried to get on Trina's good side was because she believed she was popular. The two have clashed after Mina finally snapped at Trina due to years of abuse, but Trina is currently attempting to repair their friendship. Mina insists that she never hated Trina to begin with and she merely wanted to show her the error of her ways, though Trina hardly listens to this. In spite of their mixed feelings, they still hang out and confide with one another whenever necessary. It has been shown that Mina has a violent temper of her own, outmatching Trina's, but her mother has helped her keep it under control. Classmates * Dennis Artranis (John Cho): Trina's classmate. He secretly has a crush on her, but her fierce temper prevented him from acting on it. Conversely, Trina has little issue with him, save for viewing him as a coward. Trina is very appreciative of Dennis whenever he goes out of his way to do something nice for her. * Cooper (Jon Heder): Similar to Dennis, he has a crush on Mina. He and David seem to be an inverted version of Trina and Mina as Cooper frequently assists Dennis in whatever he does. Naturally, Cooper would be interested in his female equivalent, with the only difference being that Mina doesn't want anything to do with him. * Seline (Alyson Stoner): A typical popular girl who serves as a rival to Trina and Mina. She has an obsession with befriending people of differing races, due to a mishap that happened a few years ago. Seline occasionally sides with Trina, depending on the situation. She doesn't hate Trina, due to the fact that she hates her brother more. In My Dear Nelson, she claims that she has an older sister who's the direct opposite of her. Since Some Kind of Special, Trina and Seline seem to have become friends. * Allison B. Angrim (Mo Collins): Seline's partner in crime. She's more expressive than any of her friends and is very silly, though she could get serious whenever it's necessary, and is highly devoted to her friends. It was revealed in Some Kind of Special, it's revealed that her behavior might be due to some kind of mental disability (hinted to be autism). Her name is a mix between the names of Alison Arngrim and Allison Balson, whom have played Nellie and Nancy respectively in Little House on the Prairie. It's revealed in A Lesson On Backbone that she's Canadian and was born in Calgary. A running gag throughout the series is that she gets compared to Darlie from Clarence and Sharie from Wayside, and she responds by making a joke about their similarities. * Colleen Hartman (Ava Acres): Considered a friend to both Trina and Seline. Colleen is a shy, quiet girl who rarely ever speaks (done to account for scheduling issues for her actress). She is best identified by her pink coat and winter cap (which she wears even when it isn't winter) as well as her big blue eyes. According to Seline, this was done as a compromise when her parents couldn't afford proper contact lenses. Colleen was revealed to be an insomniac and she gives forms to her teachers which allow her to sleep whenever necessary. It's implied that Colleen is part Dutch. * Dwight (Bumper Robinson): The school bully. His intentions and way of operating change depending on the episode. Some episodes feature him physically assaulting weaker students while others feature him merely insulting them verbally. Within the few interactions he had with Trina, they seem to have a mixed relationship. In one episode, he punches Trina in the face, breaking her jaw and nearly killing her, but in Turnaround, he seemingly helps her make it to the dance so she could be with Nick. Dwight's behavior seems to be brought upon by an inferiority complex and torment from previous years. Teachers * Mr. Mitser (Scot Adsit): The school therapist. Due to Trina's anger issues, she had to visit him frequently. Because of this they have struck a personal friendship and they talk to each other even when it's not necessary. He often helps Trina with her endeavors, no matter how unorthodox they may be. * Mr. Leetoh (Don Creecher): Trina's science teacher. He's a conspiracy theorist and he claims to have come from another dimension, and claims that he has traveled through many dimensions in his lifetime. He claims to have been a science teacher in a previous dimension (a possible reference to Creecher's previous role as Mr. Sweeny in Ned's Declassified: School Survival Guide) and his favorite show is Quantum Leap. * Mr. Pritchett (Andy Dick): Trina's math teacher. He's very incompetent at his job (rather than teaching the class, he elects to show them videos or base lessons on popular media.) As a result, he's very popular with his class and he has kept his job under request of the students. It's implied that he also bribes Principal Trager into keeping his job under the condition that his annual paycheck gets halved. Andy Dick is the only actor who doesn't record his lines at a recording studio. Instead, Strange hires interns to travel to his home so he could record his dialogue for whatever episode. It has been believed by many that Mr. Pritchett is a homosexual, but they soon realize that he's simply childish and easily excitable. * Coach Nelson (Donovan Patton): Trina's gym teacher. Physically weak and lacking backbone, he doesn't seem to take his job as seriously as he should. It has been revealed that he's a closeted homosexual and has confessed his affection to Mr. Pritchett. Nelson's homosexuality was included to follow the trend of kids cartoons featuring homosexual characters. * Principal Trager (Michael Richards): The school principal. It is rumored that he has worked every position in the school at one point in his career, hence, he is very knowledgeable of each subject and is ready to correct any of his staff members when needed. He tends to interact with his students over the phone, and he takes the guise of a man named Jerry whenever he tells them bad news. He treats the staff much more poorly than the students, especially Miss Corbis. * Miss Corbis (Maggie Roswell): Trina's history teacher. She is often hard on Trina, thanks to a series of mishaps that befell her (unintentionally caused by Trina) and tends to enforce the school's rules to a much higher degree than anyone else. It's implied that she's even more cruel than Trina and Mina and hence, she isn't very popular with her class. The other teachers regularly harass her. Her personality is based on Trina's old personality in Grojband. * Nurse Mike (Kel Mitchell): The school nurse. Mike is a retired soldier who suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He encourages the kids to be themselves and do as they please, and he often acts out his war experiences with them. Enemies * Nick Mallory (Will Friedle): Trina's former love interest. The two rarely spoke to one another, and Trina knew nothing about him beyond the fact that he looked attractive. When the two finally share a moment of intimacy in Turnaround, Trina learns of his true colors as a deceiving misogynist who only follows the instructions of other males. Since the episode, it's implied that he transferred to another school. * Corey (Brian Drummond): Trina's younger brother, and the frontman of Grojband. He frequently steals his sister's diary and exploits her emotions in order to write hit songs. Naturally, the two siblings hate each other and they try to sabotage each other's days, with the outcome varying depending on the situation. Corey is one of the three characters from the original series that appear in Red Life. * Laney (Linda Cardellini): One of Corey's friends. She made her first and possibly only appearance in Scarlet Rose where she and Trina compete to see who has the most violent temper, only for the both of them to wind up losing to Mina after they accidentally destroy her laptop during a fight. Her temper became more volatile after getting undermined by her friends over the years. * Kon (Seth Green): Another one of Corey's friends. He has attempted to court Trina, but after an unknown encounter where she humiliated him, he went on a vandalism spree which led to a 2 year house arrest. He gained a considerable amount of weight and spent his sentence making internet videos. Kon plays a major role in Konman where on what would've been his last day on house arrest, he attempts to make a relationship proposal to Trina. Trina declines the offer, which causes him to leave his house to confront her personally and triggers his ankle bracelet, lengthening his sentence. * Mike, Brian and Joe (Andy Berman, David Hornsby and Scott Menville): Snobbish triplets who constantly evoke their superiority to their classmates. They often provoke Trina more than anyone else, but they thankfully get called out on it. Mike is the leader of the trio and has a much more collected personality, often handling any situations the brothers get into, Brian is the less intelligent of the three and he unintentionally screws up whatever plans they're doing due to his lack of common sense and Joe has a trigger happy personality and often makes outbursts even when they aren't necessary. Their jabs toward Trina are done because they're both fans of Grojband, and they might be aligned with Corey. Their names are sourced from Joe Davola, Mike Tollin and Brian Robbins, and their personalities correlate with how Strange interprets the IRL producers. * Trowa (Tamera Mowry): Dwight's sister, and the potential cause of his lack of self-esteem. She's the self-proclaimed "Yo Mama Champion" and she tends to use this to get to her would-be victims. Trowa is soon put into her place after unknowingly making a joke about Amaris' mother, who happens to be dead. Since then, she has declared that she'll try to improve herself and will come back when she feels she's ready to face everyone again. Reception Critics Common Sense Media gave the shoe 2.5 out of 5 stars, stating "It's serviceable for its intended audience, but there're far too many times when it goes too far." Critics have noticed that the animation didn't rely on Flash, instead being done with traditional animation and have praised the writing and humor, pointing out that it has a sense of sophistication and subtlety that could attract anyone of any age. Fans When news of the new series came out, fans were skeptical and outright panned the show, believing that it undermined the original and that it wouldn't succeed. They didn't believe it would be a terrible series, but rather one that doesn't work as well as the original. When the show premiered, the fans became more open to it, praising the animation and the writers' attempts at keeping the former show's humor. They noted that the characters that were kept from Grojband had more of the same personality they had prior, only slightly altered to fit their new roles.